


White Lilacs and a Full Moon

by KallinFrost



Category: Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (2013)
Genre: Fix-It, M/M, One shot (maybe?), Prompt Fic, Prompt Fill, Short & Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-06
Updated: 2014-08-06
Packaged: 2018-02-12 00:36:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2089041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KallinFrost/pseuds/KallinFrost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I saw you were an english major, and I was wondering if you could rewrite the ending of Great Gatsby to make it an epic love story??" </p>
<p>Well, I can sure try... but if you were hoping for Daisy/Gatsby, I'm afraid you're going to be sorely disappointed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	White Lilacs and a Full Moon

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! I received a prompt on tumblr, and I decided it sounded cool and to give it a go. The ask got eaten in my inbox, but here is the result!

I tried to call Daisy three times on the day of Jay Gatsby’s funeral before I gave up. I knew, on the third try, that she was avoiding speaking to me. I could hear Daisy's baby girl, a cherub born to a lost and broken woman, crying in the background as the wait staff informed me, carelessly, “The Buchanans are on a holiday, Mr. Carraway, and cannot be reached.” I'd hung up the phone, banging it down hard three times to vent my frustration.

I moved to the next room, resting my head against the wood of the coffin before me. Closed casket, more for my sanity than Jay’s appearance. I couldn't bear to look at the man, cold and dead, when he’d been so full of life before. The solid, cool surface leveled me, just barely enough, to deal with the coming day. Gatsby had no living relatives, at least not that he’d bequeathed in his will. According to the lawyer that had come to read it, he’d left everything to me. I had expected Daisy, or perhaps even some far off relative, but instead he’d chosen me, Nick Carraway, who lived in an old groundskeeper’s cottage next door. It baffled me, angered me even. But anger was useless against a corpse.

I walked through the nearly-new, nearly empty house, saw all the useless shirts Jay had shown Daisy, couldn't bear to see the pool in which, had I opted to swim that morning with Gatsby, may not have killed him. All the memories of the friend that had entered my life and become pivotal to it in nearly the same moment, even if I couldn't see it at the time. No one had come to the funeral, though I'd gotten an obscene amount of flowers, enough to make up for the lack of other people bringing them... Even if he said he got the flowers for Daisy, that day she came for tea, I think that he quite truthful with me or himself. I got the impression he loved them more for him than for her, the white lilacs especially. So I got them for his funeral, so he could be surrounded by flowers for the final send-off, so to speak. Even if I didn’t understand him any better in death than in life, I still knew I cared for him. He’d been my truest friend; the only one that had never once faulted me for not being like him. I couldn't let that unspeakable kindness go unanswered.

When my walkthrough was done, I sat at the only chair beside the coffin, and put my hand over my eyes. No one knew Jay Gatsby. Not even me. But it appeared I was the only one to appreciate him despite that.

I heard a knock.

I paused, looking around to see if perhaps there had been a late arrival to the funeral. There was no one in the vast emptiness but me, and yet I heard a knock again. I looked down, at the apparent source, and shook my head. Wishful, torturous madness lied that way. The knock sounded for a third time, this time louder, and I jumped, back and away.

“I don’t mean to startle you, Old Sport, but can I trouble you to open the lid?” The voice I didn’t think I’d hear again was muffled through the oak casket, but I stepped forward, slowly creaking open the lid. Not afraid of what I would find; no, I was hopeful on that count. But afraid of what I wouldn’t. That it would be my mind playing with my heart.

When I could look through the darkness within, there laid, grinning his signature smile, Jay Gatsby. He sat up slowly, and I backed two steps up, horrified and fascinated all at once. I stared so long that his smile faltered and my eyes stung from the lack of blinking. “Well, now.” Jay cleared his throat, for lack of something else to say, and I finally blinked as he climbed to his feet, shaking himself out. He looked dapper in his favorite suit. I’d been planning on burying him in it, as per his instructions in his will.

“My god.” I whispered. “My god...” I repeated, louder, and then a third time in a yell. I was so angry with him, so angry I could hardly feel my own skin, but still, I couldn't bring myself to hate him. I was so happy that he wasn’t dead.

“Nick...!” He said, starting to look frightened, at least concerned. The unflappable man looked... less unflappable. I was frightened of myself. I didn’t know what I was going to do any better than him.

“How? Why have you done this?!” I demanded, my fists clenched against... everything around me. “I was... do you know how upset I was? Do you realize what you have put me through, these last days?!” I yelled, and he smiled again, becoming once again the perfect facade I had come to recognize and see through. It was his best defense.

“You were the only one I could trust with something so important, Old Sport. You were the only one I could think of that I didn’t question, not for one minute, and I was right, wasn’t I? Look at this. An empty funeral, except for you, Nick Carraway.” He said, and came forward, putting a hesitant hand on my shoulder. “Let’s sit down for a drink, and I’ll explain the point of all this.” He said, and I followed him like a wraith into the billiard room, where he kept a decanter well stocked. He sat us both down with a finger of brandy, and I didn’t touch mine as he started speaking.

“I needed a way out of all this, Old Sport. Some of my business partners, you see, weren’t the friendliest, not to mention the misunderstanding of the mechanic’s wife, I would have surely been put on trial or lost my life very shortly. I needed to die. But I needed to be reborn a new man. I think you understand, Old Sport, I think... perhaps it is time I lived for the future.” He said, “Daisy couldn’t be bothered to come to my funeral.” This was said so softly, I wasn’t sure I’d heard it at all. “So I decided to make it happen, you know. I’ve got all this money, and I can’t very well keep it when I’m supposed to be dead, so I gave it to my only trustworthy friend, Old Sport. Nobody knows you, of course, and is unlikely to bother you for it.” He said, and I closed my eyes and sighed. If there was one thing that I simply could never resist, it was his optimism. Even when I knew I should hate him for his wrongs, he showed me his never-faltering optimism, and I forgave him without a thought.

“Can you... understand, Old Sport?” He asked, and I smiled.

“Yes, Jay. I can understand.” I said, softly. “What will you do now?” I asked, and he smiled.

“I was hoping to travel. I was thinking Paris. I’ve always wanted to see France. I’ll be James Gatz, a rich American relocating to Europe, and no one will know me. And I was hoping, Old Sport... that you would come with me?” He said, and I admit my face showed my shock.

“Why, Jay? Why would you want me to go with you?” His face faltered for a moment, when he thought I was about to refuse him, but at that he brightened again, flashing bright white teeth in a smile that was charming despite the surreal quality of this whole situation.

“Because you’re worth the whole damn bunch of them put together.” He said, softly, putting his hand over mine in a curiously intimate move, and I closed my eyes and barked a laugh, close to a sob.

“Yes, Jay. I’ll go to Paris with you.” I murmured. I don’t know what possessed me to say it, but I was never sorry I did.

“Then I’ll ready everything. You don’t have to worry about a thing, Old Sport. I’ll arrange it all.” He said, cavalier in words but not in tone. I could tell this was where his plan had ended. I just nodded. I realized, then, that it wouldn’t have mattered where Jay Gatsby wanted to go. I would have followed him anywhere.

True to form, he had everything ready by the next day, and together we travelled to France, quite a trek. When we arrived, he smiled at me. “Let’s go for a walk, Nick. Beyond this moment, I have no plans.” He said, and I smiled.

“We should probably find a place to sleep tonight, Jay.” I suggested, and he nodded.

“I am James to everyone but you, now, Nick. You’re the exception again.” I didn’t know what he meant by that, but I smiled anyway and followed him as he walked. We found an old townhouse that was for rent, and he flashed enough money to get us the place without needing to speak french.

“It’s in poor repair, Nick. Why did you choose this one?” He asked me. There was cleaner, newer options, sure. I knew that... But this place held something special.

“It’s got character, Jay. It’s got potential.” I said, and he smiled indulgently, nodding and having the movers he’d gotten from god knows where start moving in furniture that had come from the same place, as far as I knew.

Later that night, as we sat on living chairs around a fireplace --the only heat source in the cold apartment-- I noticed Gatsby staring at me. He was framed by flowers, white lilacs that only confirmed my suspicions that he loved flowers for himself, not for Daisy. “What is it?” I asked, as he took a sip of his brandy.

“It was never Daisy I was in love with... was it?” He asked, and I slowly shook my head.

“No, Jay.” I said quietly.

“The girl I loved had nothing to do with her, did it? The girl I loved was an idea. A fabrication I’d put so high up on a pedestal that no woman could ever compare.” He said, and I nodded. That was what I saw too. “I forced the demise of Jay Gatsby.” He whispered. It was then I realized we’d probably had more of the brandy than we should have, at this point.

“Jay...” I said, and put my hand on his arm. I didn’t know what to say, probably would have, if I’d been more sober. But I simply had no idea.

“It’s all right, Nick. I’m not him anymore. For the second time, I am James Gatz, and this time that name fits me like a glove.” He said. Our eyes locked, and his reflected the flames eerily, like he was burning from the inside. “I don’t think I shall ever be able to love a woman the way I loved the idea of Daisy. It would be unfair to any woman to try.” He said. “But I find that doesn’t trouble me. I love someone as much as I loved her already. Perhaps even more. Blinded though I was to it, I think I am in love again, that perhaps in searching for a love lost I found one far more precious to me.” He said, and I was surprised at how much that ached, like a gnawing in my chest. Why ask me to come with him, me, ‘worth the whole damned bunch’, to go with him if he already loved someone else?

“Then you should have taken them to Paris.” I said, my tone colder than I wanted. He gave me a confused look.

“Oh, but Nick, Old Sport... Can’t you see that I did?” He asked, and my addled brain took me a moment to catch up, to really understand what he’d said. When I caught up, I was again caught off guard by my own heart. There was a deep satisfaction in his words, in knowing that I captivated Jay Gatsby as much as he’d always captivated me. Relations like what he was proposing weren’t talked about, weren’t even considered among the men in the neighborhoods Jay Gatsby and Tom Buchanan lived in. Even less so in the ones I had grown up in. But the idea... didn’t revolt me. Didn’t scare me. We weren’t frightened boys, or even frightened men, anymore. We were free of it all. It was invigorating, if I was honest with myself, to contemplate leaning into him, kissing him, exploring what this new relationship could bring for both of us. It could bring pain, could bring death if the wrong people found out. We would have to be careful. We had enough money to buy out of any really bad situations, but not without a beating. That didn’t matter to me as much as it should.

“What are you saying, Jay Gatsby?” I asked, and he smiled, sensing that I knew already.

“I am telling you that I love you, Nick Carraway.”

“Well, that’s fortunate. I think I might love you too, Jay.” I said, far more nonchalantly than I felt. The grin he expressed could have outshone the full moon outside the window. Would have, probably, if it had come to fruition; instead it was covered in a kiss. I was ready to embark upon this new journey with Jay Gatsby; perhaps I’d been ready longer than I wanted to admit. As he kissed me sweetly back, I understood that after the time we’d known one another, he was finally ready too.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you're interested, you can come visit my tumblr, kyblogslife.tumblr.com


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